Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Seder Success

Seder One required a few crucial elements:

1) A foray to the Dar Fish Market – The market is teeming with every imaginable type of swimming creature. It is overwhelming – fish-covered men chase you waving silver glinting fish, prawns, and squid at you. Stall after stall, stacked with with large mahi mahi to small bait fish, stretch for fifty yards. Hundreds of people bustle about, carrying fish, cleaning fish, filleting fish, washing fish guts down the sidewalks, walking barefoot through the fish guts washing down the sidewalks…. The only thing we knew to do was check for non-cloudy eyes as a sign of freshness. We emerged with a fresh snapper and a type of salmon, which we had cleaned out of site of a newly-squeamish Hillary.

2) A visit from our friend Laura Frederick from Kampala. In typical Laura fashion, she came directly here from having been on the road all week, bearing wine, food from Kenya and remarkable cheer.

3) Amazing new friends. One family, Cory, Julia and Alia, have access to the regular embassy pouch. With matzah farfel – a key ingredient for matzah ball soup – being unavailable in Tanzania, they had some pouched over. They showed up with a huge pot of matzah ball soup to serve fourteen. It may well have been the only matzah ball soup being served in Tanzania.4) A supportive and innovative wife who can source things like no one else. We don’t have the accoutrements to entertain yet, so Hillary ran out on Saturday. in a matter of a few hours, she had a tablecloth made, found a long sea-shell embroidered runner, some carved serving dishes, Shabbat candlesticks, a long candle holder carved from old dhow wood, and a Masai water gourd, to use for the ritual hand-washing.

Bodie found the hidden afikomen, wrapped in a blue and white khanga, under the sofa cushion. The next day, Hillary was wearing that khanga on her head and Bodie asked if she had the afikomen on her head.